Clear insights into the resignation of IPCC lead author Ken Caldeira as enlightenment to reality becomes a true scientist’s real growth in understanding, as his awareness, viewpoints and actions  change as the weight of empirical evidence increases. Best part of the comment by Robert Brown saved here is toward the end, read it all. Link is in regard to the video  further up thread, of Ken’s presentation and Julia Pongratz: on their relevant findings on evaporation cooling on both local and global scale effects.

Maybe his German (she sounds like that) Postdoc explained the hydrological cycle to him.

A very interesting post. I wonder if Caldiera is changing his stance because he suddenly realized that his own research has just proven that the climate sensitivity is much smaller than has been claimed by e.g. Hansen et al.

She speaks of “irrigation” or “reforestation” as mechanisms that keep (relatively small) areas of the land wet. Water is then evaporated from this wet land (or from the pores of trees during respiration) and yes, it carries away at least the latent heat of vaporization as it does so, locally cooling the surfaces.

This water vapor — water containing heat that was picked up from the ground — then is transported up. H_2O molecules are lighter than O_2, N_2 and CO_2 molecules and — unlike CO_2 that tends to blanket the ground because it is literally “heavier (more dense) than air” — diffuses generally upward, especially when it is warmer than the ambient air, which, at least initially, it is.

Air in the lower atmosphere cools fairly predictably with height. As the water vapor transfers some of its surplus heat to the surrounding air (heating it), pressure instabilities are created that cause updrafts that carry the warmer wetter air up not through diffusion, but via active transport that rather quickly lifts it up to much cooler air. Water is a polar molecule and strongly interacts with just about everything, and as it encounters ever cooler air (and constantly transfers some of the heat it picked up on the ground to it) it locally adsorbs to e.g. neutral air molecules, creating a more dense (if short lived) complex that gradually experiences no net lift. Air molecules continue to carry the heat on up, however, warming air that is ever less dense very slightly. (more…)

[found this question by one of the authors of the post;]

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/05/23/evidence-of-a-lunisolar-influence-on-decadal-and-bidecadal-oscillations-in-globally-averaged-temperature-trends/

Basil says:

Pamela,

I’m not ignoring you. I’m wrestling with the concept of how we would “prove” (or falsify) that the decadal or bidecadal cycles in global temperature are “caused” by ocean current cycles which are themselves likely driven by the same exogenous sources we’re attributing the temperature cycles to. For example, in the post I did on the PDO, I recall both a bidecadal and even a pentadecadal cycle in the PDO and NPI. Does that mean these are “causing” the cycles we’re seeing in global temperature? Or is it not more likely that these are just different manifestations of a common external (or exogenous) driver (or drivers)?

Or, suppose we could definitely link the decadal signal in global temperature trends to ENSO. So? What is driving ENSO? I’m sure we can cross-correlate cyclical variation global temperature with a variety of different climate variables. But you understand as well as I do that this doesn’t “prove” causation. It merely establishes association, possibly driven by common forces.

What are those common forces? Besides lunar and solar, what other candidates are there for the ultimate cause?

[My answer would be the lunar declinational tides being synchronized to the rotation of the magnetic poles of the sun.]

[Found this paper today in an article posted before I started reading WUWT, linked from;]

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/11/15/are-secular-correlations-between-sunspots-geomagnetic-activity-and-global-temperature-significant/

Richard Mackey says:

Here are some notes about the lunar nodal cycle. I’ve extracted them from my paper, “The Sun’s role in regulating the Earth’s climate” published recently in the Journal of Energy and Environment paper (VOLUME 20 No. 1 2009).
By way of introduction, here is the Abstract of my paper:
This paper introduces this thesis:
The Sun-Earth system is electromagnetically, magneto-hydrodynamically and gravitationally coupled, dominated by significant non-linear, non-stationary interactions, which vary over time and throughout the three-dimensional structure of the Earth, its atmosphere and oceans. The essential elements of the Sun-Earth system are the solar dynamo, the heliosphere, the lunisolar tides, the Earth’s inner and outer cores, mantle, crust, magnetosphere, oceans and atmosphere. The Sun-Earth system is non-ergodic (i.e. characterised by continuous change, complexity, disorder, improbability, spontaneity, connectivity and the unexpected). Climate dynamics, therefore, are non-ergodic, with highly variable climatological features at any one time.
A theoretical framework for considering the role of the Sun in relation to the Earth’s climate dynamics is outlined and ways in which the Sun affects climate reviewed. The forcing sources (independent variables) that influence climate processes (dependent variables) are analysed. This theoretical framework shows clearly the interaction effects between and amongst the two classes of variables. These seem to have the greatest effect on climate dynamics.
Climate processes are interconnected and oscillating, yielding variable periodicities. Solar processes, especially when interacting, amplify or dampen these periodicities producing distinctive climatic cycles. As solar and climate processes are non-linear, non-stationary and non-ergodic, appropriate analytic methodologies are necessary to reveal satisfactorily solar/climate relationships.
In this context, the Lunar Nodal Cycle is but one of the solar variables (arising from the Sun’s gravitational field) that has to be understood in order to understand fully the many ways by which the Sun regulates the climate of the Earth.
The lunar nodal cycle and climate.
The 18.6 year lunar nodal cycle (LNC) tidal periodicity has a pervasive role in climate change. It is the period of a full rotation of the Moon’s orbital plane around the ecliptic, the geometric plane of the Earth’s orbit around the Sun. It is the clearest tidal signal in the thousands of time series analysed. (more…)

Posted on November 10, 2011 by Anthony Watts

Northern light over Malmesjaur lake in Moskosel, Lappland, Sweden Image: Wikipedia